


Just Something We Need To Do

by glisteningceruleaneyes



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Attempted Murder, No Spoilers, Other, Politics, Swimming, bg Aria/Jacqui bc like... im not a monster, coworkers whom have crushes, handwaving about apostolisian cultural anything, one of those "totally not a date" dates, one single joke about smoking, rated teen for some casual swears (sorry mama), smoochin, some super whacky metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-15 01:41:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15402180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glisteningceruleaneyes/pseuds/glisteningceruleaneyes
Summary: Mako did a 10/10 job of a) not making a stunned face, b) not turning faintly purple and c), not having his stomach do that weird swoopy thing. He’d swear it on a space bible. He’d swear it on two space bibles, even.





	Just Something We Need To Do

Mako Trig had refreshed all his socials every thirty seconds for the last forty minutes and nothing was _happening ughhh._

He slumped sideways on his seat in the mess of the _Kingdom Come_ and sighed, loudly and dramatically. His hair, freshly dyed a very tasteful and appropriate platinum blonde, smooshed into the faux leather. He stared at some crumbs beside his nose and raised his voice.

“AuDyyyyy,” he said, drawing the pilot’s name out until it was more or less a plaintive wail.

“Yes, Mako?”

“Do you want to like, do something today?”

AuDy’s…well, head was an inaccurate word, but the top of their chassis poked into view over the edge of the table that Mako had flopped behind. They didn’t say anything. They just looked at him.

“Like…” Mako trailed off. He really didn’t know what AuDy did for fun. He didn’t know that _AuDy_ knew what they did for fun. “Fake beach?”

“I’m a robot.”

Mako paused with his mouth halfway open, before his next suggestion, which was ‘couple’s massage, but you know, as buddies,’ could escape. “Bar…?”

“I’m a robot,” AuDy said, again. They sounded patient, but they always sounded patient. They were only actually being patient about half of the time.

“I could teach you how to hoverboard and film it and we could get some sick likes,” Mako suggested, giving a weak shrug into the faux leather of the seat, which creaked. He couldn’t tell if it smelt of butt or if it just smelt of like, super old plastic that got set on fire occasionally.

“I am going to spend the day repairing the undercarriage of my ship,” AuDy said, rather than responding to the last suggestion, which was weird because it had been a really good one. “Then I am going to meet a friend in a neighbouring dome.”

“Which dome?”

AuDy just looked at him.

“Is your friend,” Mako said, sitting halfway up and spreading his hands as though he was a CEO about to drop some very real facts on the boardroom, “…hot.”

“I think they are the normal temperature,” said AuDy, and then, as Mako opened his mouth, “I know what you are asking, Mako, but I am a bad judge. If you are bored, you could stow away some of the things in your room…” Mako slid under the table and mounted a hasty retreat. “So that I don’t hear things hitting the walls whenever I make a tight turn!” AuDy continued, raising their voice. Mako was already in the corridor.

 

“Ariaaaaaaa.”

“Hmm?” She was squinting into the mirror, perfecting the long black wing of her eyeliner.

“What are you doing today help me I’m bored.”

“Going out with Jacqui,” she said, not breaking eye contact with the mirror. Mako never had the patience to keep his hands so still for so long, so, major respect. “You can’t come.”

“I wasn’t going to ask,” Mako said, a beat too late.

“You’re not third wheeling for us, Mako,” Aria said. She turned her head back and forth, scrutinising her eye makeup.

“Look at me,” Mako said, and she turned to face him. “It’s perfect. You’re perfect. Blend your neck some more, though. And you’re also the _worst_ because I am _so bored.”_

“Don’t you have friends?” Aria said, turning back to the mirror to apply her lipstick.

“I mean yeah, but my man Laser Ted is like, in space, and everyone else is _busy._ You’re busy! Even _AuDy_ is busy!”

Aria pouted at herself in the mirror and then, as if she had _no idea what she was doing to him,_ which she probably—probably?—didn’t, said, “Cass?”

Mako did a 10/10 job of a) not making a stunned face, b) not turning faintly purple and c), not having his stomach do that weird swoopy thing. He’d swear it on a space bible. He’d swear it on two space bibles, even.

“I mean they’re probably busy being like, exiled, and like, doing medical… things,” he muttered.

“You haven’t checked, have you?” Aria said, using her pinky finger on her not-metal hand to tweak her cupid’s bow.

“They probably gotta starch their uniform or something, I dunno,” Mako said, frowning intensely at a weird blue stain on the wall by the sink so that he didn’t have to make eye contact.

“If you really need something to do, nobody’s cleaned the galley in probably a week,” Aria said, and Mako had an immediate change of heart about talking to Cass, which was a great idea, actually.

“Maybe I should get on this starch wagon?” he said, taking a step backwards. “They can give me some hot starching tips. Um. Have fun on your date!”

“Don’t wait up,” Aria said.

“It’s 11 in the morning,” Mako said.

“Yep,” she said, and grinned. “Don’t wait up!”

 

Mako was just making a perfectly normal request of a workmate who was also sort of a housemate and it was also perfectly normal that he spent a full two minutes using his phone camera to get his hair right. The static from the seat in the mess had made it spiky in all the wrong ways.

He had taken two steps decisively forwards when Cass’ door slid open and they stepped into the corridor, nearly into him.

“Hi, Mako,” they said, as he skittered backwards.

“Hi,” he said, sort of blankly, taking a moment as his brain metaphorically rebooted. Cass was in casual clothes, which was always slightly upsetting because their casual clothes were tight over different parts of their body to their work clothes. The affect was slightly spoiled because they had a duffel bag slung over their shoulder. “Hey, uh—you’re, um, going somewhere?”

“Exercise,” Cass said, like they hadn’t spent most of last night running from a big cyborg man with a laser cannon in his arm with the rest of the gang.

“Can I come?” Mako asked, before his fool mouth could catch up with his thinkin’ brain. _Fuck._ Seeing Cass working out would make him incapable of forming a full sentence for the next five to six weeks. Once he’d seen them hang by one arm while shooting something (or someone, or whatever, he’d been distracted, okay) and he’d been so caught up in that image hours later that he’d forgotten what his _own name_ was when he was talking to their contact.

Cass seemed taken aback, and then they gave a small smile that made Mako feel like he’d fallen backwards into a warm bath. “Sure,” they said. “I can wait.”

“What for?”

They gestured at his plastic t-shirt and his finest pair of pink jorts, looking pained. “You’re not going to swim in that, are you?”

“I’m _what_ um no definitely not going to uh. You’re going swimming?” Cass gave him a level look and he said, “ _Right,_ fish person, yes. Swimming is probs like, a pretty big deal, I’m guessing.”

“Yeah, a pretty big deal,” Cass said mildly. Mako mustered his thoughts enough to open the door to his room. He scrambled through the clothes on his floor. He had board shorts here _somewhere._

For swimming with Cass. _Fuck._ He still knew how to swim, right? Was that one of those things that was like riding a hover bike, or like one of those other things which was really easy to forget you learned how to do? “So, where are we going swimming? Fake beach?”

Cass made a disgruntled noise from his door. “Chlorine,” they said. “Gills. No, I was planning on going to the Apostolisian baths. There probably won’t be a lot of people there around this late in the day.”

Mako’s head shot up from his clothes stack. “Wait, Apostolisian baths? I thought everyone went nude in there.”

“Maybe two hundred years ago,” Cass said. “Some baths still do, back h—on Apostolos,” they corrected themself. “But on Counterweight, no, don’t worry. You won’t be confronted with any naked Apostolisians.”

Mako’s mouth and brain started a small war. His brain won, which meant he didn’t blurt, ‘there’s only one naked Apostolisian I want to be confronted with’ even though he _really_ wanted to. He found his board shorts and a pair of tasteful neon green flip flops, and snagged his towel off the hook by the door. “Sweet,” he said, instead, which sounded maybe a bit alien racist. _Salvage it, dude_. “I mean… okay. Cool. It’s all g! Are we taking a train?”

 

* * *

 

 

Cass might have been neglecting their duty. They were pretty sure they were the only doctor Mako regularly saw, and until he’d volunteered to go exercise, they hadn’t thought about his fitness level at all—beyond job-relevant questions like, ’can he keep up to run away from this’ or ‘is he flexible enough to fit into this air duct.’ (The answer to both of those questions had been yes, but it was only the second one that kept them awake at night).

The person in question was lounging on the seat opposite them, taking up three people’s worth of space. He was wearing headphones, but the tinny sound of his music was still audible. Thankfully, there weren’t any people on the maglev this late in the morning to be offended. Mako was slurping on some unknowable Constellation drink—Cass had tuned out halfway through his order. It was pink and sugary, and it had at least two espresso shots in it, and now they were thinking about it, they were _kind of worried_ about his cholesterol.

“You… don’t smoke, do you?” they asked.

Mako looked up, raised both his eyebrows, and shook his head. “No. Why? Should I start?”

They blinked. “What? No.”

“I can smoke if you want me to, Cass.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“Are you one hundo percent sure about that, because you sounded kind of like you wanted me to definitely start smoking.” He was starting to grin, even though he was trying not to.

“I really don’t,” they said. Mako grinned wider, his eyes glinting.

_“Vaping?”_ he said.

“I’d kick you off the ship,” they said, just to see Mako’s familiar, theatrical, offended, flail and pout combo.

“You’re no fun,” he said, flipping his sunglasses down. He turned in place to stare dramatically at the screens that were meant to replicate the feeling of windows.

“But you asked to come with me,” Cass said. They covered their mouth before he could catch them smiling.

“Well—yes,” Mako spluttered, and then, so quickly it sounded like a conversational dive for cover, “I was _super bored.”_

“If you were that bored, the pits in the mech bay—“

“Not that bored,” Mako said, quickly. “I was the sort of bored that’s like, bored to death, but not bored enough to tidy up the mech bay.”

“I’m glad you prefer my company to death,” Cass said, and Mako gave them another grin, this one with a little less shit-eating and a little more sincerity.

“Totes,” he said, and leaned back in his seat again. The robot that was supposed to check their train cards entered the carriage and drove right by them.

“Hang on, are you _fogging_ the train conductor?” Cass hissed.

“We’re waiting for our pay to come in!” Mako said, beaming unrepentantly.

That was hard to argue with, except—“Your coffee cost _thirteen dollars.”_

“It’s basically a meal,” Mako said. “This shit is so thick you can’t even stir it.” Cass covered their face with their hands and groaned. “What was that, Cass?” Mako continued. “It sounded like ‘uRughuhgghhhhhh cholesterol guhh’ to me.”

Cass glared at him between their fingers, and then raised their head and read the screen above the door of the train. “It’s our stop,” they said, hopping to their feet. Mako wasn’t far behind them. When the train braked, he swayed, and Cass steadied him without thinking about it. His shoulder was warm. The smile he gave made them very glad he’d wanted to spend time with them today.

 

* * *

 

 

The exterior of the baths looked like an ageing rec centre and a bunch of Corinthian columns had had a baby, and the baby had been painted, and then after being left outside under the harsh dome ventilation, the paint had started to fade and flake off the baby. Mako had to pause to contemplate it for a while.

“I gotta warn you, if it comes to some sort of synchronised swimming shit in there, I’m gonna let the team down,” Mako said, jogging to catch up with Cass. “Also, there’s a 50/50 chance that I’ll get in the water and just plain drown, so I hope you’re ready to do some casual CPR like, every five minutes.”

“I don’t know how you _think_ CPR works, but whatever you’re imagining probably involves a lot less cracked ribs and vomit,” Cass said, drily.

“Ew,” Mako said. “Geez. I thought it was just like. Air smoochin’.”

Cass contemplated him for a moment. “No, you didn’t,” they said, and broke into a smug, _hey-I-caught-you-out_ kind of grin.

_Oh heck oh shit_ they knew him pretty well. His insides felt all soupy. “Nope,” he agreed. “Just trying to stir you up.”

“Try harder,” they said, still grinning. The door opened for the two of them. Cass tapped their watch against the scanner before Mako could say, ‘wait, though, let me pay for myself’, like it was some kind of date. But it totally wasn’t, because—Mako was just here because he was bored, right? And besides, Cass was just being nice and paying because he’d complained about being coffee bankrupt, right?

The Apostolisian behind the front counter didn’t even look up from their computer when the two of them walked in. _Interesting._ Mako reached out and found a spot to jack in. For all it was as Apostolisian as hell in here, the security system was all Oricon. The person behind the desk had a security camera feed, and two incredibly cool people walking in hadn’t provoked a reaction, so—

“Do you come here a lot?” Mako asked, following Cass through an old fashioned swinging door into the next room, which, judging by the lockers, was—hmm. Ah, yes. Apostolisians. It was a gender neutral change room, and empty, thankfully. He was already feeling vulnerable enough without bringing strangers into the mix. _It’s not a date, it’s just two hot friends who aren’t seeing anyone hanging out together for a fun activity and getting undressed._

“On and off,” Cass said, muffled, because their shirt was already mostly off. It was a lot warmer in here, so Mako decided to pin the purple tinge to his skin on that. _Welp. Probably nothing they haven’t seen before._ He frowned at the lockers, halfway through kicking his sneakers off.

“This place seems like something you’d like, tacky architecture aside,” he said. “Why don’t you come more often?”

“It depends on if I’m in the news,” Cass said, flatly. They were avoiding looking at him, which was probably good, because he was tangled halfway out of his jorts. It was not his most seductive moment.

Mako wrinkled his nose. “I’m guessing the average Apostolisian isn’t your biggest fan.”

“It’s fine as long as they don’t guess who I am,” Cass said.

Mako glanced over at them, specifically at the safe area of their general face zone, his eyes wide. He didn’t like the way they had said that. “Fuck, bud, is it even safe for you to be here?”

“It’s fine,” they said, again, in a tone that said distinctly that it wasn’t, in fact, fine. There was an elastic snap as they pulled the top of their bathers on. It was a sort of crop top situation, and it was a very complimentary olive green. Their shorts (tight, short, doing many favours) and their crop top framed… _Oh no their stomach. Oh no abs. Oh no._ Cass, unaware of the ab-centric crisis they’d plunged Mako into, continued, “I haven’t run into real trouble yet.”

Mako sensed the conversation was teetering on the edge of some Big Real Stuff that was in danger of making a pretty fun trip so far into a major bummer. _Time for a joke._ “We could build you a tank on the ship,” he said, earnestly, tying the string of his board shorts. “Put in some little treasure chests, some bubbles.”

Cass snorted and shoved his shoulder. “Shut up, Mako,” they said, but they said it affectionately, and they stopped looking as grim.

“Seriously,” Mako said. “If it’s not safe for you to be here but you _wanna_ be here, or someplace like here, we can sort something out.”

Cass tossed their clothes into their locker. “Thanks, Mako,” they said, eyes soft. They bundled their hair back and tied it into a short, stubby ponytail. “That really does mean a lot.” They smiled. It was radiant. “Hey, you good?”

“Hmm? Sorry?”

“Are you. Ready. To _swim,”_ they said.

“Oh, totally.” Mako bumped his locker shut and went to push the other door open. The air that rolled in was warm, smelling thickly of brine. Cass had a spring in their step as they walked through.

The baths were basically what Mako had expected. The same sort of columns as outside skirted the edges of a big-ass pool. There was a balcony or upper level, or something. There were some littler pools off the side that were probably shallower or warmer or both. A parent and a kid were in one of the far ones, and an older person was doing laps. There were windows overhead, showing the tacky projections of grey clouds onto the BluSky dome. It was quiet, except for the soothing sound of water lapping at the edges of the pool.

Cass pointed to the stairs at the side of the room. “I’m gonna head up. Meet you in there.”

Mako shrugged, still dizzy at the thought of their abs and hypnotised by the sight of all the water. “Sure,” he agreed. He approached the pool, crouched, and stuck one pale blue foot in. It was below body temperature, but still warmer than he expected. He climbed gingerly in. The pool was deep–super deep. He clung to the edge, trying to make the gesture look relaxed and in-control.

Behind him, and slightly overhead, he heard the sound of bare feet hitting pavement in a run, _pap pap pap PAP PAP PAP—_

He looked up. Cass hit the dive board mid stride and jumped. Their body arched into a long, sinuous shape, and they hit the water in a perfect swan dive. There was a modest splash.

Mako panicked for about twenty seconds when they didn’t come up before he remembered that they had gills. _Oh, yeah_. He tried not to think too much about how good Cass looked, and how happy Cass looked. It wasn’t fair that their face was perma-associated with a huge colonial space superpower. They should have been allowed to swim whenever they damn well wanted.

There was movement under the water and Cass surfaced close enough to Mako that he could see how the salt water had put a sheen on their scaling, which ran faintly along their neck and belly, the underside of their arms, the insides of their thighs. Their hair looked longer wet. They pushed it out of their face, grinning at him. The gills along the side of their neck fluttered for a moment before they took a deep breath through their mouth.

“Do you want a go?” they asked, and for a second Mako was so overwhelmed he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what Cass was talking about.

“You mean at _diving?”_

“It’s really fun,” Cass said, coaxingly, and Mako actually started considering it when they used that voice, because he was a weak, weak man.

“Give me a few minutes to like, remember that I know how to swim first. Then I’ll impress you with my mightiest cannonball.”

Cass grinned and shifted backwards, giving him space. “You won’t figure it out while you’re stuck to the side.”

Mako _did_ want to be closer to Cass, so. He let go of the tiles at the edge, trying to remember how to do the legs and arms thing he’d learned at school. It all sort of made sense. The water held and buoyed him, and there weren’t any of those fuckin _lane ropes_ from school, which he’d always crashed into. He ducked his head and came up shaking his head like a platinum blonde dog.

Cass laughed.

_Cass laughed._ Holy _fuck._ Mako was sure he’d heard them laugh before, but there was usually a sardonic edge to it. This laugh sounded completely honest, and bigger, and freer. If that laugh could be bottled, Mako was certain he’d get drunk off it.

“Race you to the end of the pool,” they said, and dropped under the surface of the water. Mako paused to contemplate the sleek shape of them arrowing away from him for a moment, and then the time for contemplation was over because he was Mako Trig and somebody had just _challenged him to a race_.

He was going to lose, obviously, unless Cass had to battle a sea monster or something along the way, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him. Mako threw himself into the closest approximation of a breaststroke that he could remember. Cass hit the end of the pool, did some kind of impressive somersault, and came back to circle him as he laboured up to the finish line. He didn’t begrudge them at all, especially not when their arm brushed against his ribs when they popped up to hang off the wall beside him.

“You,” Mako said, breathing hard enough that the admiration in his voice wasn’t _quite_ as audible, “are _fast.”_

Cass grinned, looking much younger, and then the grin slipped sideways a bit. “I used to be faster,” they said.

“And I used to have less bullet holes in me,” Mako said, and nudged them with his elbow just for the sake of _oh no,_ _abs._ “We can’t always get what we want. Besides, you’re not going to get any faster hanging out here with slowpokes like me.”

“Hmm,” Cass said, and looked at him for a moment. Mako hoped they would pass the purple creeping up his face off as swimming exertion. “Healing well,” they said, regarding the scattered scars across his chest. They met his eyes. “Time me.” They pushed off the wall and somehow kicked at the same time, and vanished into the water again.

Mako set up a stopwatch in the corner of his field of vision and kicked back in the water to float. He snapped Aria and AuDy a picture of the baths and said, _‘can we build this on the kingdom come for a birthday gift 4 cass’_ and then immediately got sucked into a wiki link fight with Aria about whether or not Apostolisians had actual _birth_ days, seeing as, fish people.

“Time?” Cass asked, surfacing beside him.

“A minute and _two_ _seconds,_ you monster. Hey, do you have a birthday or like, a hatching day or what?”

Cass blinked at him. “Naming day,” they said, and grabbed onto the wall for their cool kick-off thing again. “You all missed it, by the way.”

“What _no,”_ Mako said, just before they disappeared again. He got distracted by Cass’ own wiki page for the next three of their laps (58 seconds, one minute two, and one minute five, respectively). Yep, the crew had missed it by two and a half months. _Shocking._ Mako had at least had the decency to tell everyone about _his_ birthday and get everyone that could get drunk as drunk as possible. He set a reminder in advance for Cass’ _next_ naming day, waiting for replies from AuDy and Aria, and then sort of… zoned out. The water was nice, and he didn’t have to think about floating very much to actually do it. Cass’ wiki page was bare bones, probably monitored and regularly cleared out by whatever Apostolos had that counted for a PR team. The photos of them were all decades old. They looked blankly emotionless in all of them. Mako felt like he knew Cass _pretty damn well_ by now, everything considered, and he knew that generally, the seriouser Cass looked, the more miserable they were.

“Time?”

Mako blinked and rolled around in the water to face them. “Three minutes. Oh no, is the salt water ageing you?”

“Not, uh, exactly,” Cass said, hustling him towards the side of the pool again. “But we have company, and I’m trying to avoid them.”

Mako glanced at the trio of Apostolisians stalking around the edge of the pool. They were not dressed to swim. Mako definitely recognised those wrinkles in their jackets, because Cass’ jacket got the same wrinkles when they were wearing their underarm holsters. The group of them were watching Cass intently.

“Everything’s in my locker,” Mako said, quietly and urgently. “Cass, we’re outnumbered and they have _guns_ and we have, between us, _no guns._ ”

“I know,” Cass said, grimly. “But they’re only interested in me, and hopefully I can negotiate—”

Mako had already jacked in, relying on Cass to do the whole ‘stopping a beloved teammate from drowning’ thing. The protocols were _nothing._ He ducked under them, and then— _hello,_ emergency alarm system. He set off the fire sprinklers for good measure, but they were still approaching, jogging now, really, and Mako panicked.

The person in front, the leader, probably, had a pretty ordinary phone. One, two, dodge the security, and _hello,_ battery.

The leader person or whoever they were spun in place and hurled their phone out of their pocket. It was on fire. So was their nasty polyester jacket.

“Come on,” Cass was saying in his ear, more or less carrying him in their haste to get out of the baths. Mako blinked, as always a bit surprised to find a human body around himself. At least this time Cass was warm and holding him and he wasn’t full of bullets or trying to steer the Ring of Saturn. He propelled himself for the last bit, and took Cass’ hand so they could fluidly pull him up and out of the pool. Mako expected evasive manoeuvres, maybe out the back door, but Cass leaped forwards into a run and, moments later, had punched the person to the right of the Apostolisian on fire square in the face. Mako barrelled after them and tripped the on-fire leader guy so that he fell on the other one. Their matching jackets were, truly, terrible, because the fire caught. Mako skipped over them and grabbed Cass bodily, pulling them forwards.

“Go, go,” he said, and registered maybe halfway to the change room that he had a tight grip on their hand. The two of them had always worked well together, and Cass didn’t speak as they each grabbed their bag from their lockers. Cass’ duffel was well packed, like they’d expected this, but Mako had to shove his socks into his clear pink backpack on the way out the front door.

It was freezing, but he pulled up the sneakiest route back to the train instead of the fastest one. Cass let him grab their hand and pull them along again, bare feet slapping on pavement. When they were a few streets away, tucked into a grimy alley, Mako called a stop.

“Clothes,” he said, squatting to dig through his backpack. He tugged on his t-shirt, which kinda stuck to him. Cass was staring at him, but they looked away when he raised an eyebrow at them. “Do you think we need to work harder to lose them?”

“No,” Cass said. They started to pull their clothes on over their bathers. Mako wished he had the time to properly mourn the loss of the sight of their abs, which were still best summarised as _oh no._ “So long as we’re not leaving wet footprints. I don’t think they’ll have the guts to do anything outside of Apostolisian spaces.” They shoved their feet into their boots without putting their socks on. Mako winced.

“So, has this happened before?” he asked, hopping up to tug on his jorts. “Are there lots of attempted poolside murders?”

“Threats, maybe,” Cass said. They glanced over their shoulder. “Nothing that bad before.” Before Mako could speak, they added, “I’m glad you were there.”

“What haha I did basically nothing, don’t even worry about it.”

“Mako, you set somebody’s phone on fire.” Cass’ forehead screwed up. “How did you even _do_ that?”

“Do you want me to walk you through the code?” Mako said, grinning. At Cass’ expression, he said, “Okay, so the phone they had has this _really_ bad battery. It’s usually fine, but if you disable the BMS it’s like, super fucking easy to overload it.”

Cass’ hand went to their pocket, as though worried their phone had started smouldering while they weren’t paying attention. “I’m glad you’re on my side,” they said, wryly.

“I’m always on your side,” Mako said, and then floundered, and added, weakly, “…buddy.”

Cass was giving him a Look. The meaning of the look, even with a billion years of Cass’-facial-expression-reading experience, escaped him. After way too long a period of Mako Contemplation, they said, “When’s the next train?”

 

* * *

 

 

Mako wasn’t sprawling out. It was strange. The two of them were too visibly damp for the other travellers to want to sit near them, but he wasn’t taking advantage of the space. His knees were drawn up to his chest, and one of his hands was drumming against the side of his sneaker absentmindedly. He did fog the train conductor—probably once to stop them checking their tickets, and again to stop them noticing that he had his feet on the seat—but he didn’t give Cass a roguish grin after he did it. He was staring at the seat by their knee, his eyes unfocused, and there was a little wrinkle between his eyebrows.

Cass studied him for two stops before they managed to make themself lean forwards, elbows on knees, and say, “Mako.” He blinked a couple of times before he looked at them.

“Hmm?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Uuuuuughh,” he said, eloquently. He unwrapped a little and slumped sideways into the window screens, looking pained. “Cass. Cass, my pal.” He stopped.

Cass folded their hands patiently, making it clear they were willing to wait. Mako always responded in a predictable way to silence.

“Ughhhh _okay,_ ” he said, flapping his hand at them. “Look, I’m honestly _super bummed_ for you, if we’re being real about it. Don’t make that face at me.”

Cass wasn’t conscious that they’d made a face. They were just—taken aback. “Why?”

“What? Why shouldn’t you make that face?” Mako said, and rolled his eyes extravagantly. “It’s because nobody should be allowed to make looking confused _look_ that good, dweebus. No, okay—legit, do you not know?”

Cass spread their hands like a general waiting for their scout to get to the good news portion of a ‘I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news’ field report.

“It sucks that you can’t just do what you want,” Mako said, throwing his arm wide enough that, if anyone had been sitting near the two of them, he would have hit them in the face. “Do you seriously not like, _hate it?_ You just wanted to like, use a day off to do laps like a _total nerd,_ and you can’t do it without causing—without causing a _political_ _fiasco_ in the _fishiverse._ You shouldn’t have to! It’s the worst and I hate it and you deserve better there I said it whatever.” He flopped back in the seat and threw his arm over his face, hiding his eyes in the crook of his elbow.

If Cass was honest with themself, in the shirt he was wearing, it was an unfairly flattering position for him. They weren’t going to focus on that, though. They were going to focus on the bit where—“You feel bad for me?”

Mako stayed where he was, face obscured, but said, “Not in like, a pity way. That would suck. I just… ugh.”

“Wh—”

_“Don’t_ ask why again,” Mako said, plaintively. “It just makes me feel worse for you. You should _know._ ”

That wasn’t completely fair. Cass was very familiar with the depth and breadth of how shitty their particular political crevice was. They’d just accepted it a long time ago. They preferred not to think about it. When they _had_ to think about it, they preferred to sit in their mech and work through a bottle of subpar wine. There was something reassuring about bad wine. Nobody had ever given them bad wine back when they’d been a scion.

“I’d just never really seen you that happy before,” Mako said, muffled.

Nobody had cared how they felt when they’d been on Apostolos, either. Cass knew the familiar buoyant feeling in their chest was just their kidneys being generous with the oxytocin production, but knowing that didn’t _help._ They bumped Mako’s ankle with theirs, and he raised his arm to look at them.

“It’s not an ideal situation,” they said, “but I’m still happier where I am than where I was.”

Mako paused for a long time, and then said, “Same.”

“I figure the same thing is true for Aria and AuDy,” Cass said. “We’re all better for knowing each other.” They hesitated. “Maybe not _morally._ ”

Mako gave a slow smile. It should have been illegal. “Okay trueeee.” He sat up. “Hey, are you hungry? I am one hell of a hungry boy right now. That’s what they never tell you about running from dissidents, Cass.”

“There’s food on the ship,” Cass said, blandly.

“You’re no fun.”

“We’re waiting for our pay to come in,” they said.

Mako screwed up his face exaggeratedly. “You’re no _fun._ ”

“I’ll cook for you.”

Mako visibly brightened. He raised one finger. “You are _a bit_ fun. Don’t let it go to your head.”

“It’s going to be salad.”

“I take it _back,_ you _demon.”_ Mako laughed and flung his arm out, and—there. He was lounging again, sprawling comfortably out as though their stop wasn’t the next one. He gave them a look that was far too serious. “This means Plan B: Kingdom Tank is go, by the way. You should probably let me know your filter and gravel prefs in the next few days.”

They shoved him, and he laughed again.

 

* * *

 

 

Cass, the sneaky fucker, managed to get him to clean the kitchen, or galley, or whatever. He didn’t know how it had _happened_. One minute, he’d been sitting on the counter swinging his legs and engaging in sick bantz, and then Cass had looked at the messy stove with a sort of pinched expression, and then he had said “Oh let me get that hang on” and had cleared up some saucepans and _then,_ the next thing _he, Mako Trig, knew,_ was he was holding a wet cloth and was _wiping down surfaces._ He even found the _cleaning spray_ in order to _do it more thoroughly._

Love, man. Crushes! Feelings, _whatever._ Anyway, he was a husk of his former self.

“I’m going to marry this,” he said, with his mouth full.

“It’s just salad,” Cass said, bemused.

“I didn’t know you could put fried things in salad. You’re a visionary.” If Mako tried very hard not to think about it, he could do mental backflips over the whole _two hot friends who aren’t seeing anyone, being real about their emotions and eating a meal together_ thing, but it was sort of hard, seeing as the Kingdom Come’s screens were projecting goldish afternoon light and Cass kept smiling at his jokes and they were eating out of _matching bowls_. He was screwed.

He was also kind of itchy, seeing as salt water had basically dried his clothes to him. RIP, third and a half favourite jorts. He scratched the back of his neck.

Cass pushed their empty bowl aside and leaned back into the faux leather seat, which creaked. They stretched and sighed, looking contented. He’d never really had the chance to appreciate their eyelashes before. Mako decided that he was experiencing Actual Legitimate Death.

“I should shower,” they said, and Mako sat bolt upright.

“ _Nope_ I was thinking it first,” he said.

“I cooked,” they said.

“I set somebody’s phone on fire for you,” he said. The two of them froze, watching each other suspiciously. Mako wasn’t sure who moved first, but Cass put one hand on the table and vaulted and he slid sideways off his seat, and there was a sort of noisy good-natured wrestling match-slash-running race down the corridor. Cass, with some underhanded use of their height, managed to scoot inside the bathroom first. They both stopped, with Mako’s hands on the doorframe and Cass’ hand resting on his shoulder.

“Today was fun,” Cass said. Their hair was a mess and their eyes were bright. “I would say we should do it again, but considering what we actually did, maybe not _exactly.”_

Mako’s whole body felt—awake. He’d never been so conscious of his elbows before. He was buzzing, but he was standing perfectly still, so _what gives._

“Cass,” he said, with a deliberate slowness that was only comparable to a one-finger texter, “was today…” The corners of their eyes were crinkling. He trailed off, absolutely certain that they knew what he’d been about to say, because they were _making the face again._ The same one they’d made in the alleyway. Mako hadn’t clicked on what it was before, but he was basically a Professional Cass Expression Recogniser and the second time around, he knew it. He _knew._

_Fuck,_ he thought. He was only halfway through thinking it by the time he’d kissed them.

It was salty, mainly, and there was a bathroom door barring at least half of the way, and his crusty jorts situation was only becoming more dire by the minute, but it was also the best kiss of his entire damn life, because Cass made a small, surprised sound and then the hand on his shoulder slipped up to hold the side of his face and they kissed him back. He kneed the door aside in probably the most romantic gesture of all time and then they were _holding him, hell yeah._

It was the best kiss of his entire damn life, but it was still sort of a relief when Cass shifted uncomfortably and pulled back and said, “This is delightful, but my shirt is still damp and I have really got to—”

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” Mako said, conscious on some level that he was wearing the galaxy’s goofiest grin. “I’ll, uh. Go clear up? We can smooch when we’re comfier?”

“That would be great,” they said, and kissed his cheek.

He’d volunteered to do dishes. _What had he become._ He felt no remorse about it, because Cass was smiling. Take _that,_ the pool. There were apparently _two_ things that made them that happy.

 

* * *

 

 

The Greater Apostolisian Journal of Medical Research had not become any less dense or self-important since the last time they’d read it. Cass found that reading through a backlog of issues that had been acquired without going through the paywall made it a lot more tolerable.

They yawned, swiped to the next page, and took a sip of their coffee. Their door unlocked and slammed across, and they nearly spat it out.

“Good! Morning!” Mako said. He swanned into their room, radiating good cheer and barely-contained kinetic energy. Cass swallowed. “I am about to make your day. No, I’m wrong. Your entire _year._ Prepare yourself physically and emotionally and also…spiritually?” The door shut itself behind him. It had only taken one week of dating for Cass to discover that Mako had no respect for locks. He considered them a minor hindrance on a door that was already, in his mind, open.

Mako bumped them aside and bounced down onto the bed to lay beside them. He made a gesture at their tablet and a new tab opened.

“Mako…” they began.

“I promise I’m not looking at all the sappy poetry you’ve inevitably written for me. Odes to my eyes, sonnets to my butt, the whole lot. Just check this out.”

Cass did. It was a webpage with a chunky animated gif of a winking dolphin. It flipped jerkily beside the words, _Counterweight public aquatic centre!_

“It’s terrible,” they said.

“It’s a triumph,” Mako said, and leaned into them as he used his actual fingers to scroll down. His arm lay across the small of their back. Cass hadn’t grown up with that sort of easy physical contact; everything had been perfectly calculated. Mako was _always_ in their space. They still weren’t used to it. They loved it. “Look, here—at this bad boy under their broken paragraph marker. Salt water.”

Cass raised their eyebrows despite themself. “Oh,” they said.

Mako was smiling, but in a nervous way. “I did my research and okay _so_ turns out you’re not the only person on this planet who wants to splash around and clock freaky fast lap times,” Mako said, quickly. “And they’re super inclusive so they _had_ to make it water Apostolisians could swim in. Of course, it does mean you’ll be swimming with the _plebs_ and, _ugh,”_ he gave a theatrical shudder, _“the common folks.”_ Cass elbowed him. He grinned. “But! Membership works out cheaper and the management of this place won’t let dissidents know where you are. And they’ve got a whole bunch more cleaning drones than the other place, too, which I figure is a relief if you’re going to be breathing the water—”

“Mako,” Cass said, and he stopped. “It’s an amazing find. Thank you.”

“I said I’d find something else,” he said, at a less frantic speed. “And I meant it. I think it might be nearly as good as the Apostolisian one, and it’ll be safer, too.” He grinned. “The tank on the ship is still a genius idea and I stand by it, but apparently we couldn’t build one big enough for more than one person, and that sounded kind of miserable.”

Cass kissed him, because, after all that, what else were they supposed to do? “You want to come with me?” they asked.

“I had a good time last time,” Mako said. “Even with the attempted murder and the laundry consequences. Also, you promised me that diving was fun and I never got the chance.”

“It is fun,” Cass said, gravely.

“Also, last time we went I realised you have abs,” Mako said, narrowing his eyes. “I can’t believe you’ve kept this incredibly important piece of information from us this whole time. Now I know, I’ve gotta get my fix, Cass.”

Cass raised an eyebrow at him. “You know we don’t have to go swimming for that, right?”

Mako raised his eyebrows right back, since he couldn’t raise just one. _“Reeeeally,_ ” he said, trying to sound sneaky and just sounding elated.

Cass snorted and put the two nearby breakables that were their coffee mug and their tablet aside. “Come here,” they said.

Mako made a noise that sounded suspiciously like ‘yesssss,’ but they’d let it slide.

**Author's Note:**

> deleting the word 'thongs' and replacing it with 'flip flops' like I'm ashamed of my cultural heritage smh... anyway I haven't written fanfic in one hundred years so I hope a) this is good and b) that my use of Tone with Mako isn't BAD TO READ, I went pretty ham with him.
> 
> (title is from Cub Sport's song 'Pool!' which, if ur writing about gays going to the pool, is imperative listening)


End file.
